THE VAT – PART I

Oct 11, 2015 News

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By Harold A. Bascom

As we continue our series on Guyanese myths, we bring you this four-part story from the imagination of author and three-time Guyana Prize winner Harold Bascom.

Yvonne Holder doesn’t believe in ghosts. You don’t believe in such stuff when you’re a trained psychologist and crisis counsellor. But, while on assignment in Port Kaituma to investigate a rash of suicides, it slowly becomes clear to her that something is stalking young men from the North West community…something released from the ruins of Jonestown… something that would soon stalk someone she loved…

 

“It’s interesting that all the newspapers wrote about ‘a spate of suicides in the Northwest district region…” said Yvonne Holder, psychologist and crisis counsellor. “But not one of them said that all those four suicides took place in one Northwest district mining town.”

“Four young men,” murmured the assistant. “All from that one place; don’t sound catholic.” She stood next to the filing cabinet nearest the window out of which poinsettias, bloomed tropical red, in the windless humidity of Georgetown.

“Why?” the psychologist asked rhetorically.

“Well… that’s why, the day after tomorrow, you’re flying into the Port Kaituma.”

The charwoman, entering with a wheeled bin behind her, piped in: “Port Kaituma. That is near Jonestown, where crazy-man Jimmy make over nine-hundred, damn-fool American people commit suicide—you don’t remember that, Miss Holder?”

“And who would forget that, Beulah?” the young psychologist said.

“Well…” Beulah continued, taking a brush and dustpan out of the bin. “If four young men kill themself in five months—just like that? Eh? It could only mean one thing: Evil!—and what you could expect happening in a place like just ten miles from Jonestown that must be haunted like hell! … You know what it is to have a place where over nine hundred earthbound jombie crying out in that darkness?”

The assistant was suddenly staring, stony-eyed, out the window.

The psychologist chuckled. “You Guyanese people really superstitious, you know,”

“And you is what, girl?” the bespectacled charwoman with the hip-shorted gait said challengingly to the young psychologist. “You’se Guyanese too! So, if you going to that place to keep workshop—I’d advise you to make sure to walk with some kinda guard! Don’t fly to that place unprotected!”

Chuckling, the psychologist said, “So I should walk with a bodyguard or something, Miss Buelah?”

Beulah Plass stopped cleaning, adjusted her bifocals on her nose, and fixed the young psychologist with a stern glare before lifting a scolding index finger. “Miss Holder!—you’s a very bright girl—and I respect you for that! But, listen … to … me! —not because I does sweep offices I don’t have sense!”

“We would never say that, Beulah,” the assistant piped in.

“Never meant to offend, Beulah—I’m sorry…” Yvonne Holder said.

“You walk with a guard! —something ‘round you neck or something! I got a nice little guard chain I will bring for you tomorrow! Wear it! What you could lose? And if anybody see it, all they going see is a nice gold chain.”

“Okay, Ms. Beulah,” said the psychologist. “But just tell me what’s on this guard chain—anything that smells?”

“No chile; the chain I will bring for you don’t smell. It got a little pendant-thing like a small egg at the bottom. But what it have inside! It strong enough to repel any spirit—any demon that try to come ‘round you! I can swear by that!”

“Powerful medicine!” the assistant said.

“Yes!—It real powerful!” said the charwoman, and continued with her cleaning.

Yvonne Holder thought of her sibling, Brent—whom she always referred to as her ‘lil, red-skin brother’.… Beulah sounded so much like him. Brent took it upon himself to recall myriad stories of the supernatural they had both grown with—stories that had been told to them by their maternal grandmother who lived with them. She could never have foreseen that those very stories would have made her brother the popular figure he became through his weekly column for a local newspaper, ‘Stories of the supernatural’.

Brent, unlike her, embraced psychic possibilities—spiritual possibilities. She, however, was quick to scoff at anything science could not corroborate; and every time, he would respond, “Vonny, my sister…your disbelief in something, does not negate its existence.”

She smiled whimsically to herself. Maybe I should let Brent follow me to this place—why not? She meant to get to the bottom of the suicides. Brent and his investigative skills would come in most helpful—why not?

He would enjoy it—maybe he might even find material for an article or two. She remembered too, that he had always wanted to visit Jonestown, but had never gotten around to it.

She called him that evening, after she got home, to see if he was working on anything that he couldn’t take a break from. (He wasn’t.)

“You heard of the ‘spate’ of suicides in the Northwest district?” (He had.) “Where do you think it’s happening?” (He called Matthews Ridge; he called Hosororo; he called Arakaka; he called Morawhanna; he called Mabaruma…) “Nope—none of the above! All of those four suicides took place in one place—”

“Port Kaituma.”

In her mind she saw him nodding conclusively.

“Near Jonestown, and suicides involved…” he said. “Interesting. … And you want me to come up there.”

“If you want to.”

“Understatement of the year, Vonny.” He chuckled. “You know how long I meant to see Jonestown?”

*

Yvonne Holder stood on the verandah of the posh guesthouse she stayed at in the rustic mining settlement, and absently fingered the ornately decorated, egg-shaped pendant like a miniature Faberge egg on the chain around her neck. What was inside?

“But what it have inside! It strong enough to repel any spirit—any demon that try to come ‘round you! I can swear by that!”

Right now it didn’t matter what was inside; it didn’t bother her, anyway.

This was the day her brother was scheduled to arrive. Since he never called to cancel, she knew he was on the twin engine Lysander that overflew the guesthouse a little over twenty minutes ago. She presumed that in a matter of minutes, the Land Rover that transported people from the Port Kaituma from the airstrip would soon pull into the street below, and disgorge her brother.

She found herself thinking of another young man: Sean La Cruz, and the young men who had taken their own lives—the eldest twenty; the youngest, seventeen. The loss of Sean La Crus, however, seemed to have impacted more than the other three. She heard about him at the peer-counseling workshop she had convened for the locals two days ago—one day after she had flown in from Georgetown. It had gone well for the most part: She had focused on the causes of suicide—alcoholism, mental illness, and various forms of abuse and depression. She spoke about how each could help a family member or a neighbour, who was perceived as having the kinds of problems that might lead to suicide. She stressed the need to be aware of individuals drinking too much; crying—and of course, individuals who spoke of killing themselves.

Coming to the end of it, she had opened the floor to the residents. An elderly man rose, hesitantly, with something like a rolled poster. “Miss, Holder,” he began. “My name is Phillip Pires. What I want to say is this: that what going on in this community is not natural—I have a mind dat is something very spiritual—very spiritual, and I believe—you hear me?—I believe that it has to do with a dream I’ve been having…”

“This is interesting, Mr. Pires.” The young psychologist from the City said. “Do you want to tell me about it?”

He began unfolding the large cardboard furled in his hands. “I will not only tell you … I will show on this chart, what I think is—”

A burly, curly-haired resident reared to his feet. “Phillip!—why you have to embarrass we like this, eh? Why you have to give visitors from Georgetown the impression that all o’ we is damn backward bush people?—Why yo don’t shut you stupid mouth and stop embarrassing we?—you think this nice lady come all the way from the City to listen to your damn, crazy dreams? Eh?”

“Who you calling, crazy, Victor James? Eh?—You don’t have any roots in Port Kaituma—so what you know about me?”

“I know that you is a mystical damn fraud like yo damn brother!—Who give you the right to come here with you nonsense? —Who want to hear that the boys committed suicide because they been into Jonestown?—People always going into Jonestown for curiosity—and how come they don’t dead?” He drew his teeth and turned to the psychologist. “Miss Holder… my name is Victor James. Them four chaps killing they-self, because dem probably was experimenting with drugs! They getting it too damn easy from across the blasted border! Look!—the La Cruz boy—nice, nice boy—decent family! Eh? And what happen next? Days before he dead—he start acting like he was going out he damn head—and before you know it—he plunge into the river last month and kill heself! Eh? If that wasn’t the drugs he did using cause it—I don’t know what!”

Then he glared at the elderly Phillip Pires and ended: “Old man!—why you don’t go home! This is not the place for you dotish dreams!”

There was a titter of laughter after which a woman, of mixed race, stood. “James! The big man only saying what on he mind—and he too got a right to talk like any one o’ we! Look at who killing they-self in this place—young, young people—nuffa dem who ent even gat a chick or a child to have worries so as to make them depressed with this economy we in, and mek them commit suicide! Most of the few old time suicides we had in this place was by men who uses to drink and cuss and beat up they wife and children!—But look what going on here!—Young men!—four young men ups and kill theyself—and I doubt that any one of them used!—As a matter of fact, them four boys was some of Port Kaituma’s brightest! Not one o’ them young boys was an alcoholic like plenty o’ the fools your age that we have on this landing!”

The burly man shot back: “Petty!—you telling me that dat last boy, Sean La Cruz, who dive between dat trawler and the iron barge at the waterfront, never uses to use some drugs or something?—You remember how, in he last days, he uses to walk around like he in a blasted daze?”

Someone began to wail. The psychologist’s skin grew. Through the sobbing came a broken voice: “You can’t scandal mih nephew name like that, Victor James! Sean was a good, good boy… He was a good boy!”

Yvonne Holder called for order, and made a note about the possibility that widespread drug-use amongst the youth population may have caused the suicides. She had then rounded off the meeting, shared handouts; and thanked everyone for coming.

*

Yvonne was intrigued; she needed to understand this tension surrounding the deaths of four young men from the small gold-mining community. So, she had invited the Regional Chairwoman, Shelley Wright, who had sat with her at the workshop’s head table, to have dinner with her at the guest house.

Just after they were finished eating, Yvonne Holder said, “What kind of young man was this Sean La Cruz, Miss, Wright?”

“You can call me, Shelley, Miss Holder.” The Regional Chairwoman sighed.

Yvonne laughed. “Then you might as well call me, Yvonne.”

“Well…” continued the Regional Chairwoman, “Sean La Cruz was a quiet young man—very quiet—a kind of dreamer.” She nodded. “Ambitious; he wanted to be an archeologist like Dennis Williams who started the Walter Roth Museum in Georgetown.” She sighed. “His parents—dredge owners—still don’t understand what happened. Nobody, so far, can explain why on that blackout night this boy—just run out of his room, down the street and threw himself between an oil pontoon and a trawler.”

She shook her head and continued: “And his aunt at the workshop, was right—Sean was never into that marijuana smoking or using that cocaine business!—he even had a girlfriend.”

“I’d love to speak with his parents—the La Cruzes?”

“They left the area. They left for America. But you can talk to his girlfriend, Irene.”

“Anyone ever spoke with her?”

The Regional chairwoman shrugged. “I’m not sure, but I’d love if you can speak to her.” What people need here is grief counseling and things like that.” Shook her head. “Don’t happen.”

“I’ll talk to her,” Yvonne Holder said; then like an afterthought asked about the man, Phillip Pires. “Why was this man James so hard on him?”

The Regional Chairwoman chuckled lightly. “Well… Mr. Pires is just one of the village spiritists—if there’s such a word.” She yawned. “As for Victor James? He and Pires always having it out—they have history.”

“He was all set to tell me about some kind of dream.”

“Well…” the Regional Chairwoman said, teasing the last of the pasta in her plate, “he’s been telling all who would listen, about a recurring dream he gets…”

“About?”

“About darkness hanging over Port Kaituma. Some kinda bad omen that has to do with Jonestown.”

 

Photo saved as Supernatural photo for Sunday

(ATTENTION LAYOUT: PLEASE LEAVE ITALICS WHERE PLACED IN STORY)

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